FRENCH GAY-MARRIAGE FLAP: From Newsweek

[Is this a news piece? There's a pretty thick larding of opinionation. C'est la culture guerre, I suppose. --Eve]

...The first gay marriage in French history, earlier this month, has highlighted a cultural chasm, revealing that touchstone religious and social issues can still flare up in strikingly secular France. Since announcing that he would oversee the wedding, [Begles mayor] Mamere has been condemned by angry churchgoers, been sent a package of feces and received so many death threats that the Interior Ministry assigned him a bodyguard. Serge Dassault, owner of the conservative French daily Le Figaro, penned an op-ed piece accusing people like Mamere of trying to "destroy the basis of our society" and the concept of family. The Justice Ministry launched efforts to nullify the marriage, and last week Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin signed a disciplinary measure suspending Mamere from his mayoral duties for one month.

While even some socialist leaders have come out against gay marriage, they see the government's sanctioning of Mamere as extreme. The respected center-left daily Le Monde, which has expressed reservations about gay marriage, last week called the suspension a "government blunder" and mocked Villepin for using such measures against a man who has not taken bribes, pilfered state money or been linked to financial scandals--as have a number of top government officials. And by progressive European standards, Mamere is hardly pushing the envelope.

Belgium and the Netherlands already celebrate gay marriages. Sweden and Spain are expected to do so by the end of the year. A Gallup poll of the 15 European Union nations last year found 57 percent support, with virtually identical numbers in France. The bottom line is that it's France's government which is out of step with society, not gays who wish to marry, says Mamere, who received 5 percent of France's presidential vote as the Green Party candidate in 2002. ...

...The year before civil unions became law, in 1999, just 49 percent of French people were supportive. Two years later, with French civilization still on its feet, 70 percent backed them. Today even conservative French leaders who once lambasted the unions have discovered their merits, though chiefly as a bulwark against gay marriage. ...

If Mamere wins, other mayors may follow his leap into civil disobedience. If he loses, he promises to bypass France's conservative leaders and take the gay-marriage issue to the European Court of Human Rights. The goal would be a decision by 2007, the year France elects a successor to its aging President Chirac. The socialists, aware of overwhelming support for gay marriage among young people, are likely to choose an advocate. Either way, by a change of government or a ruling from the European court, Mamere awaits the day when all French people can marry freely--and when they have a government more in tune with the times.

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posted by Eve at 12:13 PM | link

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